Two Women, Down for the Count
by MissAndrony
Summary: When Usagi accepts a mysterious offer, she must follow its consequences to the end...even if that end destroys everyone she loves.


Two Women, Down for the Count  
Chapter 1: It's The Questions You Don't Ask  
Sailor Moon like so totally does not belong to me.  
All author's notes below. 

We cover our lies with handshakes and smiles  
We try to remember our alibis  
We tell lies to our parents, we hide in their rooms  
We bury our secrets in the garden.  
--Bloc Party, "Two More Years"

When she opened her eyes, the skies were blue like a gas flame and the air still. This was a place she'd been before, Usagi realized, though its name escaped her. For a brief while she sat, keeping her mind blank. Still she stayed aware of a lingering restlessness that seeped through her veins and into her heart, and an overpowering dread of what was necessary to sweep away her private turmoil. Whatever task, whatever question needed asking, it was not compelling enough for action.  
"Perhaps you're not asking the right questions."  
Princess Kakyuu, sunny and flushed as the day she died, sat down next to Usagi on the hard earth. To Usagi's amazement, a few slender tendrils of a plant, then more, sprang through the clay dirt. One opened into a small white flower, its heart pointing straight at Usagi.  
"No, I know it's the right one." The right one because it was the only one, the only question left in her life. "I keep asking," Usagi explained in a half-lie voice, balling her fists, "and no one gives me an answer."  
"I see." Kakyuu shot her a strange, unresolved look. "Why do you expect someone else to give you the answer? You're the only one who has ever stood at that precipice. I died, Endymion died, the senshi died. So you had nothing but bad choices. That's life. No answers, bad choices."  
"It can't be that way!" she shrieked at Kakyuu, her hands closing around the Princess's throat. "It can't be, because there is ALWAYS another choice!"  
Princess Kakyuu's form grew transparent, and Usagi released her hands as if she'd been burned. "There was another choice that night," Usagi whispered as Kakyuu faded away, "I know there was. Why couldn't I see it?"  
"Doesn't matter," Kakyuu whispered right before she disappeared completely, "we always pay the piper. Open your eyes, Princess."  
She opened them.

Usagi stared up at her ceiling, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars she'd pasted up so she'd have something pretty to look at when she couldn't sleep. Luna once remarked she'd left out the moon sticker and Usagi told her she'd lost it. In truth, she'd torn it up and tossed it in the trash.  
As a superhero, nightmares were par for the course. She'd even occasionally discussed them with the other senshi, who had all confessed the same issue from time to time. Ami had once declared it was a psychological miracle they weren't shattered by post-traumatic stress. Rei lit Ami's psychology textbook on fire.  
(In all fairness, Rei promptly replaced it with a new edition, and Ami was gratified because her used copy was pre-highlighted and made her feel as if she were cheating.)  
But her new dreams were more disturbing because they expressed something real instead of the freakish exaggerations her subconscious usually tortured her with. She never dreamed of the cauldron, of her friends' unwitting betrayal, of Chibiusa disappearing before her eyes. Instead Usagi was left with the terrifying notion that she had made the wrong decision.  
Sailor Cosmos had seemed so hopeful and sure, yet...she'd missed something. Something crucial. Something that could have changed the future, and Usagi didn't know if it was good or bad, only that because she'd missed it, she had lost a chance.  
All Usagi knew was that at some unknown date, she would be standing at that exact same spot, no friends, no lover, no power left.  
"Kakyuu-san," she murmured into the dark, a single tear falling down her face, "the piper has already come for his due."

The atmosphere at the Crown Fruit Parlor's grand reopening the next morning was cheery but anxious, expectations for the upcoming school year flitting through the air. Fears and hopes were tossed around like softballs, with Usagi, Rei, Ami, and Makoto waiting for Minako to join them. Amazingly, Ami had not yet started with her speech about how this was the year she'd teach them all how to study.  
At the end of their first year of high school, the Furuhatas had decided to update the cafe, deciding on a palette of light blues and creams, to give the whole place a simpler, less childish air. A kareoke bar had been installed to provide additional entertainment. Today was the grand reopening, and through the the Parlor looked fresher and more spacious, Usagi privately lamented another change in her life.  
"Ami-chan! Woman, the new school year hasn't even started yet and you're already studying!" Before Ami could react, Minako walked up, deftly plucked the book out of Ami's hands, and gave her a light but affectionate smack with it. As light and affectionate as a smack with a three-inch-thick book could be, anyway.  
"Thank you, Mina," Ami remarked, rubbing the sore spot on her head. "I will remind you of this incident when you come to me begging piteously for help, come exam time."  
"Me? Beg piteously? Ha!" Minako scoffed. Makoto and Usagi exchanged glances while Rei coughed discreetly into a napkin. "I'll have you know that I have my pride!"  
"Except come finals," Rei pointed out.  
"No one can afford pride at finals," Makoto agreed gravely.  
"All of you, excluding possibly Rei," Ami continued, "sell your pride for remarkably cheap, where in reality if you simply adhered to the study plan I set up for you at the start of every year, you'd need never bother with the rounds of cheap theatrics and false humility each of you perform and display during exams."  
Ami's idea of a study plan involved six different highlighter colors, bolds, italics, underlines, strikethroughs,systems, figures, philosophical ideals, and the occasional inspirational quote. It also suggested a recommended study regimen of approximately twenty-five hours a week, which, Ami reminded them, was only sixty percent of her study schedule. Last year, Makoto and Minako used it as a dartboard. "Nonsense," Makoto told her, "a dose of humility is good for Mina. And Usagi-chan's never bothered with silly things like pride."  
Except when it really mattered, a traitorous portion of Usagi's mind whispered.  
"It's good practice for Mako-chan, if you think about it," Usagi chimed in, "she always makes her best goodies when she's trying to butter Ami-chan up."  
"Which you then eat," Ami reminded her. "I'd like my book back, and I once again refer you to my study plan."  
Minako looked at the laminated sheet Ami had handed her that morning and turned to Rei. "Do plastics burn well?"  
Rei's face turned an odd shade of purple. "For the last time," she hissed to Minako, "that was an ACCIDENT!"  
"Well, do they?" Minako persisted.  
Rei's expression turned pensive before she whispered back, "I'll look into that."  
Minako beamed.  
"I heard that!"  
"Put your nose back in that book."  
"Hopeless, all of you," Ami declared. "This is about more than passing classes and being better than everyone else. This is about mental self-discipline, delayed gratification, stretching one's mind for the pure pleasure of it--"  
"Which reminds me," Minako interrupted, "since this is our last day of freedom, what fabulous thing will we do to mark the occasion?" Ami opened her mouth again, but Minako cut her off with, "and it better not involve studying."  
"Actually," Ami said, a wry grin playing on her lips, "I was going to say that this morning, my mother gave me her credit card and license to use it--at Louis Vuitton."  
Four mouths dropped open.  
"Close those mouths or you'll catch flies," Ami ordered. "Now, is it worth paying 140,000 yen for a purse with a bunch of holes in it, or should I choose something more classic?"  
"Get the Vernee in framboysie!" Makoto said excitedly.  
"It's Vernis in framboise, you uneducated swine, and I don't do pink bags."  
As the girls chattered gleefully about Ami's purchase and how this would be different from the last, lamentable occasion they'd ventured into a couture shop, Usagi stared out the window.  
Mamoru was leaning against a tree, giving Usagi a nervous smile and a brief wave. She waved back and took a deep breath.  
"--and there will definitely be no knocking over of two-hundred-thousand-yen purse displays, I promise! Usagi-chan,are you even listening?"  
"What?" Usagi blinked and tried to focus back on the conversation.  
"Louis Vuitton," Minako repeated, "but with a real, live, grown-up person's credit card. Imagine. When you become Queen of Crystal Tokyo, can we have a boutique installed in the palace?"  
"Minako, hush!" Rei snapped at her.  
"I'm being discreet," Minako replied, pouting a bit.  
Usagi chose her words carefully. "I'd love to go, but I have an...appointment."  
"An...appointment?" Four very curious looks were leveled her way.  
"Yes, an...appointment."  
"What kind of appointment?" Minako asked, not bothering with discretion.  
"Minako-chan, you really need to learn some respect for other people's privacy."  
"Rei-chan, this could be a matter of global security!"  
"Or it could just be Mamoru-san," Ami remarked dryly. "Look out the window.  
Four very curious heads turned.  
"You're ditching Louis Vuitton for your boyfriend?" Minako sighed. "Oh, Usagi-chan, you providential fool."  
"But I grew up in Tokyo," Usagi protested, glad that she didn't have to go into details.  
"And that sentence made absolutely no sense, Mina-chan," Ami added.  
"Whatever," Minako said, dismissing everyone with a wave of her hand. "I see where your priorities are!"  
"I'd better go," Usagi said, turning bright red and pushing down a roll of nausea. Quickly she gathered her things and tried not to run out.  
"Bye, Usagi-chan!" all four girls' voices chirped at her, and despite her low spirits, a silly grin crept onto Usagi's face.

What she hadn't told the girls about the appointment was that she actually did have an appointment.  
"Are you ready to go?" Mamoru asked in a nervous, gentle voice he'd started using with her after they'd returned from the Galaxy Cauldron. Usagi hated that voice.  
She nodded, although privately she railed at the uselessness of this whole procedure. As he drove, she stared out the window, seeing nothing.  
"Have you been taking your medicine?" The question was practically ritual for Mamoru now.  
"Yes, Mamo-chan." She hated the drug, the one that dulled the pain, pain so crucial to solving her private puzzles, and yet was grateful for the respite from constant tears and misery. It left her feeling balanced, almost herself, until her mind wandered back into dark places she'd never known existed until that dread night.  
"Usa..." he trailed off, obviously trying to collect his thoughts. "I just want you to know that I understand how difficult this is for you, and that I'm really--"  
"I know, Mamo-chan," Usagi said, gritting her teeth. "I know"  
"Proud of you," he whispered hoarsely, more to himself than anyone else.  
When they stopped at a busy intersection, however, something did catch Usagi's eye. Two girls, dressed like typical Tokyo teenagers, but...out of place. One with loose, curly cotton-candy pigtails gave her a soft smile and a shy wave, but the other, whose hair had a more violent tint to it, gave her a sly smirk and a salute, all while chatting into her cell phone. Usagi's eyes widened as familiarity sparked inside her, but the moment was too brief for her to place the two girls.  
Shaking off the feeling, she went back to daydreaming.  
Mamoru walked her up to the door as he had for the past six weeks. The door label was new, the kanji dark and gleaming on the nameplate. Dr. Miyuki Kenzo, PhD, MD.  
On an impulse, Usagi whirled around to face Mamoru. "Mamo-chan," she started, "you don't have to wait for me today."  
His brows furrowed, and that hated sweet concern was thick in his voice. "Usa, you know I want to support you in this..."  
"I think, Mamo-chan, that I need to do this alone today."  
Hurt flashed in his eyes but he nodded. He pressed a light, chaste kiss to her lips and stepped away.  
Bracing herself, Usagi walked in for another week of not talking to her therapist.

Usagi had to give Dr. Kenzo credit. She lasted an entire twenty-two minutes this week before finally cracking.  
"Usagi-san," the woman began, "if you're not going to talk to me, why do you come? I don't understand what you or I are getting out of this relationship, other than making Mamoru-san feel better about himself as a boyfriend?"  
Part of Usagi really did want to open up to this brisk,friendly woman and tell her about the youma, her heritage, the dark secrets she'd carried since the night at the Galaxy Cauldron, but something stronger, a sense of self-preservation, perhaps, knew she had to hold back. Because she did not have Mamoru's gift for crouching his fears in artful metaphors and theoreticals. It had been a shock to discover that Dr. Kenzo had been a part of Mamoru's life longer than Usagi had, but it had explained a lot. She no longer wondered about the pill bottles in his medicine cabinet, or how a man with Mamoru's traumatic past had not grown up more...distorted. "A good therapist," Mamoru told her, "is a teacher, someone who offers you instruction and tools in how to change yourself and your destructive behaviors." What these destructive behaviors had been, Mamoru had not revealed. What he did reveal was that Dr. Kenzo knew everything Mamoru had been through, "although she doesn't know exactly know it." Mamoru really should switch from doctoring to lawyering, Usagi decided.  
Well, this good therapist had prescribed her an anti-depressant and unending patience. Usagi knew the woman genuinely liked her, and perhaps viewed fixing Usagi as an offshoot of saving Mamoru from whatever he needed saving from. That was probably why she allowed Usagi to come back again and again, on Mamoru's insurance's dime, and not speak. Every week there was a lecture on how therapy required a dialogue.  
Except the first week.  
"You came in here and began sobbing hysterically that first week," Dr. Kenzo reminded her. "I thought someone had hurt you, honestly. But it was obvious that whatever hurt you, it was inside. Usagi-san, you are the only person who can change the obvious well of hurt and confusion. I can only help you if you let me. Won't you let me?"  
Usagi stayed silent.  
"Worth a try," Dr. Kenzo muttered. "Look, I have a waiting list. I have given you many more chances than I give the average patient. I have not told Mamoru-san about our sessions--even if I were not required to adhere to strict confidentiality, I would never betray you that way. But you need to make a real decision, and let Mamoru-san know. He is trying to help you in the only way he knows how."  
"He isn't helping," Usagi finally said.  
To her credit, Dr. Kenzo covered the brief, startled look on her face quickly. "He's still not quite capable in that area, is he? I know he loves you and wants to help you in any way he can, but--" Dr. Kenzo pursed her lips. "Even if you did talk, my being your therapist is a bad idea for both of you. I'm only human and I'll slip, and both of you deserve better than that."  
Usagi blinked. Had Dr. Kenzo just given her an out?  
"You should break the news to Mamoru-san, of course, and then maybe your parents can help you find someone better suited to you. If you'd like, I will continue to prescribe you medicine, and we'll meet once every month to discuss its effects on you, adjust your dosage or assess side effects. Of course, if you need me sooner you can call me any time."  
Usagi's mouth dropped open.  
Dr. Kenzo gave her a genuine smile. "To confront your depression and anxiety, I believe you already have everything you need inside you, Usagi-san, and your silence means the battle is internal. Listen to it, Usagi-san. Mamoru says you chatter constantly, yet when truly pressed by me, you are silent. Confront that demon, slay it, even."  
It was what wasn't there that was the problem, but Usagi didn't plan on going into details. Nodding, Usagi stood up quickly, bowed, and streamed out the door.  
Release, Dr. Kenzo reflected. Mamoru was such an odd patient, with his half-truths and deceptions, but it hadn't taken a double doctorate to figure out that there were things in his life she was better off not knowing. She felt a brief pang of pity for Mamoru, whose clumsy attempt to fix his girlfriend's depression had reminded her her work with him was far from over.

Usagi practically whistled as she walked out of the doctor's office, strangely delighted by the good doctor's understanding. It had been so long since she'd felt connected to someone, as the words unspoken had been so much more precious than the actual conversation. A cheery grin popped up on her face.  
"Did the good doctor heal your heart wounds?"   
Usagi blinked and turned around. The violet-haired girl from earlier hadn't even looked up from her old issue of Seventeen to speak to her. Again the wave of familiarity taunted Usagi.  
"She didn't," Usagi told her, "she admitted she couldn't."  
"Impressive advice from someone who gets paid to fix people," the girl commented.  
"That's not a very nice way of--"  
"You want help? Help yourself." For the first time, she looked up at Usagi, and Usagi almost fainted at the sight of those sugar-shock blue eyes.  
Lethe.  
"We should go somewhere more private," Lethe declared. "Besides, this waiting room is terrible. Calming colors scare me."

Sailor Lethe, here on Earth. Usagi's mind spun and whirled like a top. How had this happened? Why had she come?  
Was she here to finish the job she'd tried to start at the river Styx?  
"I'm not here to kill you, if that's what you're wondering," Lethe remarked, twirling a lock of her hair. "It's quite gauche to kill the woman you owe a blood debt to, and I am never gauche."  
Staring at the orange shirt with Lethe's brght hair spread over it, Usagi was disinclined to agree. They walked in tense silence, Usagi stealing glances at Lethe and Lethe shooting back with amused smiles. When their quiet game grew boring, Usagi instead watched the cherry trees, whose blossoms were littering the sidewalk and grass. Her mind continued to press for answers.  
"She loves these trees," Lethe said quietly, interrupting Usagi's thoughts.  
"Who?"  
"Mnemosyne. She says it's like a shower of love. Don't ask me what that means, she likes to speak vaguely like that, but she got to see them. Thank you for that."  
Usagi's cheeks flushed, but she stammered out, "You're w-welcome."  
So Mnemosyne was here, too. Mnemosyne had been the one who had believed in her, who had offered mercy, who might have seen another way. It occurred to Usagi that Mnemosyne, perhaps, had seen what Usagi had missed. Her desire for the walk to end and her questions to be answered only burned brighter.  
The walk felt like hours but in reality was about ten minutes. When Usagi looked around she saw a small cobblestone plaza, relatively abandoned, since most of the buildings around her were either under construction being remodeled, or businesses that had fallen into decay. Signs indicated luxury condos in one spot, a future Italian restaurant in another, a tiny dry cleaners with a filthy facade, and others, all in various stages of creation or decay.  
"This is isolated," Usagi remarked nervously, fumbling for her broach.  
Lethe levied one hard glance at Usagi's hand and said, "Don't bother. We both know better."  
Her eyes widened. "But how did you--?"  
"You're not as...vibrant." Here Mnemosyne stepped out of the shadows, the soft floral print on her sundress and wide eyes making her seem so much younger than the sharply tailored Lethe. "You fade by the day"  
Usagi's heart sped up. "Don't tell," she croaked. "They can't know. If they know, I'll have to explain, and I can't, I can't, I can't explain, I don't know why--" The tears that always seemed to threaten her lately burst to the surface,and she choked down a sob.  
"We won't tell," Lethe replied in a surprisingly assuring voice. "Our business is with you and you alone."  
"Get on with it," Usagi whispered, wiping angrily at her face.  
Lethe and Mnemosyne glanced at one another in a way that seemed to express worlds. Clearing her throat, Lethe began, "Serenity-sama--"  
"It's Tsukino Usagi now."  
"Usagi-sama, you saved us. You saved our lives, our souls, our planet, our whole world."  
"It was nothing, really," Usagi choked out bitterly.  
"But it wasn't nothing, was it?" Mnemosyne gently corrected. "You paid a dreadful price. You've lost your power as a senshi, and I can't imagine what else."  
To hear the words out loud, to have to acknowledge that awful truth, sent Usagi into another crying fit, her body wracked with sobbing. Mnemosyne rushed to her, putting her arms around Usagi as she let out the sadness and fear, the rage and frustration, everything she had refused to give voice to before that moment. Mnemosyne rocked her and whispered soft, comforting nonsense words as the spell abated, while Lethe stared on, eyes dark and troubled.  
"Words are funny, aren't they?" Lethe commented. "Many on my planet say that actions are where all power lays. Is that what they say here on Earth?"  
Still sniffling, Usagi nodded. Mnemosyne swept her into a brief, fierce hug before letting Usagi go.  
"But words...to name a thing, it gives it power, too. The power to hurt, to harm, to categorize, to understand. And there is much about yourself you do not understand, isn't there, Usagi-sama." This Usagi was not quite prepared to accept. She stood motionless, a few rogue tears still slipping down her cheeks.  
"You are famous throughout the Universe, Usagi-sama, not only as the one who saved us all, but as Princess Serenity, the heiress to the greatest kingdom in all history. It was as I learned more about you that I came to realize you did not remember your life as that Princess."  
"Bits and pieces," Usagi admitted. "The big events. Those memories always feel so distant, as if that were another person living them."  
"But they're not another person, Usagi-sama," Mnemosyne interrupted. "Senshi are like the phoenix, with death followed by triumphant rebirth. Any past selves do not merely fade away. The memories are etched into your senshi crystal, integrated into your person, and if you cannot recall, then you are eternally haunted by the shadows of a past you cannot reach."  
"I never thought of it that way." Oh, yes she had. Time after time Usagi wondered why the brief flashes of her past self, achingly familiar yet never truly hers, seemed not to translate into her present self. And then there were those few cruel moments when history repeated itself.  
"Unless you can access those memories, you will be doomed to repeat history."  
Clearly Lethe was channeling Usagi's inner monologue.  
"So what does all this mean?" Usagi asked them. "Believe it or not, I've tried to reach my memories. I used the silver crystal and tried to bring them back once. But my memories, my old life, they're just gone."  
"Memories are never truly gone," Mnemosyne replied. "Just...sleeping."  
"And don't forget, we are the Senshi of Memory and the Senshi of the Forgotten," Lethe reminded her, wincing a touch at the pun.  
Usagi's heart slammed a little harder in her chest. "Are you saying...?"  
"We are bound to the Princess of the Moon by blood debt and must repay you," Lethe said in her cold soldier's voice. "As payment of our debt, Princess, we will return to you all memories of your past life as Princess Serenity and any other incarnation you may have taken. All you have to do, Usagi-sama, is say yes."

So, I decided there was one more fic left in me.  
(Actually, there are probably two or there, but let's not quibble over details.)  
This is my oldest story, the very first fanfic I ever wanted to write. It has evolved significantly from the story at its conception, damn near 8 years ago. (Holy hell, am I really that old?) In fact, it's evolved so much that I haven't gotten to know its new self very well yet. I know where it's going and how it ends, but the path there is poorly mapped with low visibility. Still, it's been a story I've privately cherished as I grew up as a writer, receiving accoldades and criticisms, learning how to follow the rules and then throw them out the window, to not take myself too seriously, and to shut the hell up and remember it's just the Internet.  
Other fics I have in progress are being carefully plotted, then drafted, then redrafted, then betaed. In a way that process is freeing because I can just write a scene and not give a damn how bad it is, because God knows I'll be back to tweak. (I love to tweak)  
This fic will be different. It is unbetaed and unplanned, and no, I am not in the market for a beta. If this results in dropped sentences (and it will), please let me know, because I will fix those immediately. Other than that, I would love and adore any critiques and commentary of the story thus far and as it continues, including but not limited to notes of inconsistencies, and other such personal insights. They're actually more important to me because this story is destined to be rough, and will probably rely even more heavily on reader feedback than my previous stories have. Call this an experimental epic, if you will.  
As a writer, I do have to ask my readers to have a bit of faith in me. I'm relearning the Sailor Moon canon and getting back on the writing horse at that, but knowing me, this story will be dark, it will be complex, it will be inconsistent, and it will at times leave the readers going, "Seriously, WTF?" Bear with me. I'll make delineations when possible.  
So, if you want to help a girl out without making public waves, you can send private feedback to strangelyliteral Please, don't be shy. God knows I've been horrid to enough half-ass Usa/Mamo writers to down a bit of my own medicine.

--Ai-ko


End file.
